There's acute power shortage in Tamilnadu, and the number of hours of load-shedding keeps increasing by the day! Apart from the usual announced power-cuts, which may range from 2 hours to 8 hours per day, we are now getting used to several hours of unannounced power cuts.

Our area yesterday was affected by an unannounced power-cut last night. There was a sudden power cut at around 6.15 pm last night. Feeling bored, I picked up my camera and started experimenting shooting in candle light and then the candle flame itself :)But, being summer, it was getting hot making it impossible to stay indoors. There was no indication that power would resume anytime soon. Moved to terrace and started clicking constellations.

My new Canon 50mm prime lens was really useful for shooting the stars, owing to the large aperture. Spent close to 4 hours on the terrace shooting various constellations and also Jupiter and Venus. The light pollution played spoilt sport as many of the lower magnitude stars weren't clearly visible.

Here are a few pics (all pics shot with focal length of 50 mm and aperture f/1.8)

Orion (The hunter). The star in the top right is Betelgeuse. I was surprised that the reddish colour of the star is visible in the photo.

Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) were next to each other. Glorious sight!

Canis Major. The bright star is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. That's supposed to be the eye of the dog.

Ursa Major. You can even see the twin (Alcar) of the 2nd star in the tail (Mizar). (please click the pic to see the larger version)